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With apt pairing, Sweden’s El Perro Del Mar and Peter, Bjorn and John are touring the States together.  Both bands have releases within the year to promote as well as a substantial back catalog.  Another similarity is their ability to be melancholy at times while creating songs which are, in essence, rooted within pop music.  However, neither group shows very much in common with fellow Swedes The Sounds or The Hives, especially in terms of their performance.  Though their songs are often sing-songy and catchy, it feels a lot less like entertainment and more like personal indie pop ballads.

Within this coupling, there are some significant differences.  Opening the night was El Perro Del Mar, who has just released her third full length 2009’s Love is Not Pop.  The album may be more accessible than her previous two releases but for what it gains in accessibility, it suffers in depth.  Lead singer Sarah Assbring is perhaps the only woman on Earth who possesses the ability to make you cry when she asks you to come over for a party or sings to you about buying candy on a Saturday night.  Her 2006 self titled album is challenging in a way that will make you question what genre the songs truly fit in.  With sometimes very minimal amounts of lyrics that often repeat to build the backbone of the songs, Assbring is very effective at sinking her main idea into the deeper recesses of her listener’s mind.   She uses very simple, perhaps even ubiquitous ideas and emotions and yet the sadness of her voice is so very striking that it seems like there is no music created quite like that.

Assbring had a second successful release, 2008’s From the Valley to the Stars which may not be as intuitively brilliant as her first but still feels like a solid and effective album.  Love is Not Pop signifies a new direction for El Perro Del Mar, however, and unfortunately many of these new songs don’t feel intrinsically memorable as the previous ones.  It’s very possible that this release is what prompted PB&J to consider having El Perro Del Mar as tour support and not surprisingly, Assbring played only songs from this recent album during her approximately 40 minute long set.

It was still El Perro Del Mar at the heart of it who took the stage and Assbring is as subtle yet striking as you’d imagine if you’ve listened to the records previously and seen her in person for the very first time.  She has almost a beautiful gothic look, like the female protagonist in horror films of the 1930s and 40s. The songs also did come off a bit more engaging live than on album with Assbring’s odd dancing creating a strange and wonderful sort of spectacle on the often-dark stage.  Though she switched up the order of the tracks, she played every song off Love is Not Pop with the exception of “It is Something (To Have Wept)”

Peter, Bjorn, and John followed up this performance with a much more engaging and longer set.  With five albums to draw songs from and with some stand alone hits, the most famous being “Young Folks,” the trio have garnered many fans in recent years.  They’ve also risen to the ranks of playing the music festival circuit and have been present at Chicago’s Lollapalooza both in 2007 and 2009. This tour, they are celebrating their tenth anniversary as a band and seem as energetic as ever, especially Peter Morén with his always iconic sort of classic rock moves.

Playing perhaps their best song, “Amsterdam” first succeeded in drawing the crowd in from the start. They continued to play a couple more of their winning songs from 2007’s Writer’s Block release later on in the night, including the aforementioned “Young Folks” with Sarah Assbring returning to the stage and filling in the part of the playful female vocals originally recorded by Victoria Bergsman of The Concretes.  In addition, “Objects of My Affection,” a winning track both on the album and live served as a fantastic ending of the encore and night overall.